Interviewing Counselors are in the helping profession. A counselor’s job is to help clients identify their problems and help them find a way to overcome them. How does a counselor accomplish this? A person seeks counseling with the understanding that the counselor has had education and experience in solving problems. There are many parts of the counseling process but the interviewing phase is one of the most important and considered the bedrock of the counseling experience.
Interview Characteristics Interviewing is one of the best ways for a counselor to find out what a client’s problem is. A counselor accomplishes this “through planned careful communication” (Mandel & Schram, pg. 324). A counselor accomplishes this by talking, listening, making non-verbal gestures and writing to have a complete understanding of what the clients problem is” (Mandel & Schram, pg. 324). Of course this isn’t just a social conversation, interviewing requires skills and a goal to
…show more content…
A way to start this would be to ask the client to explain why they came to counseling and what they feel is the most pressing problem they want to resolve? This would allow the client to really give the counselor their perspective of their problem and what they want to happen. This type of question puts the counselor in a position to strengthen the working relationship with his client and “what their expectations are” (Mandel & Schram, pg. 340). The client will see the counselor understands their perspective when the counselor uses “listening and attending skills” (Nugent & Jones, pg. 41). Finally another open ended question a counselor might ask is, if the client knows what is causing their problems. This gives the counselor some perspective on how the client views the cause of their problem and if that perspective will need to be